#rivervale_lodge

The little girl juts her chin out, but still doesn't say nuthin

"Take it back, now!" STOMP.

"NO!" The girl says, using the word she has been taught "I don't give into bullies!"

The door starts to open, though whether either girl notices or not... well.

Sam lifts her hands, ready to shove Gerd...

"STUPID. You're STUPID, and MEAN, and just some DUMB KID!"

Vali comes in "hey,w hat's all the yelling...what the hell?"

She turns, storming off.

"Dagmar, Gerd. What is going on?" Vali says. /Gerd races to his arms and starts crying

No answer from Sam. The lodge door SLAMS as she heads out.

Vali might normally follow Sam, but he's got a handful of crying Gerd right now.

-- Else where, Dagmar is out in the cold jersey autumn, angry still perhaps, maybe even scared of... well perhaps more than one thing, and hurt.

Stomp, STOMP, stomp, stomp... she kicks at a rock, slams a gate so hard the at least some wood cracks...

The rock , obligingly launches!

She does not head for the Barn, and she also avoids the direction of Klump's anchor.

Indeed. With such a direction of where to NOT go, she finds herself with a still a lot of places TO go.

There is plenty of lakefront.

She comes up to the water, noting some fallen limbs half soaked

And rocks to HURL into the water. As hard as she can.

Or fallen limbs to stomp on. Something to smash.

The rocks , well, more BAM BLOOP SINK tahn skip. The Wood breaks beneath her foot nicely!

Dagmar SMASH. "stupid.. stupid...not a bully..."

She may lose track of time as she reduces wood, some of them limbs as thick as a man's thigh, into broken bits

"you want to talk about it?" Jaymes' voice says

She's unkempt. Hair escaping her buns, some mud streaked on her cheeks. She turns at the voice and flushes purple with shame. Destruction is all about her, a mess of splinters.

Jaymes finds a chunk of wood broken in half but servicable as a place to sit and takes a seat

He does not look upset, but it's hard to tell what he's feeling. his face is still

Her face sets in a defiant scowl, hands clenched in nervous fists.

Jaymes surveys the damage "is this what you needed to do to keep from hurting someone else or yourself?"

She wilts, defiance subsumed by shame.

Her face turns away.

He waits. Seeing if she gives the answer to his question

The silence makes her fidget, growing smaller.

And he waits, watching the water

She stares at her feet, defeated and silent and miserable.

"I wish you would talk to me. You're my daughter. And you're upset, and I don't know how to fix things because I don't know your side of this."

"Doesn't matter."

"Matters to me." He says "Trust me to at least listen, okay?"

She scrubs at her eyes. "I wanna go home."

"Okay. Let's go." he gets up and offers his hand

She doesn't take the hand and keeps her arms folded. She won't look at him.

Probably best, the normally stoic man feels a bit of pain at the rejected gesture, but nods and walks beside her, perhaps taking the first step, but not trying to be ahead or behind her. Just side by side

At the house, Dagmar flees upstairs... into the bathroom with another door slam and without any words.

Jaymes feels like punching a wall himself.

He leaves her be for about an hour

The shower takes up most of that.

He hears water run through the pipes.

And when it lasts that long, it makes him raise a brow.

It does eventually end, with Dagmar retreating to her room.

A knock on her door